


Theme and Variations

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: if at first you dont succeed try try again, slices of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27372691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: The creatures from Beyond have tried to get their champion to adulthood in the Real world time and time again - so far, without success.
Kudos: 1





	Theme and Variations

It starts with a man and his son, living in a little cottage only just within a day’s walk of the nearest village.

The villagers cannot say when the two moved in, simply that one day the man came to market to buy supplies for himself and his son. A stranger in town was a thing most unusual, and so when the town gossips tried and failed to get the man’s purpose, marital status, location, even his name - well. It did nothing to endear him to the town.

He purchased a nanny goat, several packs of seeds, some leather, and a number of yards of sturdy canvas and twine at the outrageous prices the villagers named without objecting or even attempting to haggle. While the villagers were pleased with their newfound wealth, they only grew more suspicious of the man. Several of the young adults in the village attempted to follow him to his home after he had left, but no matter how wily or cunning they were, he lost them all within the first hour.

The man himself went home to his cottage and his infant son, and cared for the child. He was efficient, if not loving, and the trend continued for years. The son grew from infant to toddler, from toddler to child, and from boy to man in this way. His father taught him lessons that would have left the village in a tizzy, and every night just before bed the father reminded his son of what he must do; what the grand plan was. And every night, the son agreed to do it.

The son never went with his father to the village, for his father had deemed it inadvisable for the son to form attachments among those people. The only time he saw a human other than his father was the one time a village lad successfully followed his father home, but he never saw the villager again after his father had sent the lad away with strong words. His childhood was lonely, though he never truly knew his loss and instead convinced himself that the creatures of the forest were companions enough. His father did not entirely approve, but did not dissuade him from practicing his skills upon them.

Eventually, the time began to arrive; its coming was heralded by a strange series of meteor strikes and hulking creatures in the forest. A blight crept upon the land and into the water, brought by the strange creatures with blood like ink. The man began making preparations for them to leave, and the son accepted his father’s decision.

The blight did not affect them, though many in the village sickened and died, and the man had not foreseen that. In a place of fear, jealousy grows of those who are not suffering. In the place of jealousy, suspicion takes root. And the blossoms of suspicion are hatred.

The night before the man had decreed they would leave, the villagers came; those that were left, anyway. They came with oil, and with straw, and with torches. They believed, with all their fear, their jealousy, their suspicion and hatred, that getting rid of the unnatural man and his no doubt equally unnatural offspring would remove the blight from their land.

It ends with a towering inferno, with choking smoke and not a single shred of hope for escape.

* * *

It starts with a man and his son, living in what might generously be called an apartment.

It is a single room, with a corner for a sort of kitchen and a single bathroom down the hall that is shared among the entire floor. The building itself is ten stories tall, and each floor is the same as the next. It is not a terribly tall building by the city’s standards, nor do its windows have a particularly nice view; it is designed to house workers for the nearby factory, and nothing else. The apartments are assigned at no cost to the factory workers, but if - when - the factory worker the unit was assigned to is killed, their apartments are emptied of people and furniture and the next worker is brought in to take their place.

The man worked the factory during the day; he could not live in the building otherwise. He was not the best of workers, but neither was he the worst. He somehow managed to avoid the everyday accidents and cover-ups that took life after life among his fellow factory workers, and came home every night to tell his son the stories he needed to know and tell him knowledge of what the future would bring.

During the day, however, the son was given over to the mothers and those unable to work, who stayed in the building during factory hours. Not every factory worker had a family, and those who had children did not always have spouses. A system had evolved where every morning just before all the workers left for the factory, the mothers of the other children on the floor where they lived would come by and collect those children who would otherwise go unsupervised and take care of them for the day. The people unable to work became ‘uncles’ to the children, helping in their care and upkeep. If they were good at it, more often than not when their factory worker died another would be willing to marry them or bring them into a new apartment, to keep them and their own children in the building.

The man had been reluctant at first, but had capitulated to the need. The son grew from infant to toddler, from toddler to child, and from boy to man with the lessons of his father ringing in his ears at night, and the lessons of the mothers and uncles and the noise of the other children ringing in his ears during the day. His father said that he would save their people, that one day he would be expected to destroy the worlds to make them anew; the mothers said to wash his hands and say please when he needed something, and above all else to be kind to his fellow humans. The uncles said not to pick fights where one was not picked with him first, and the other children scoffed at the notion of destroying everything to make it anew - there was a lot of everything, after all - and so the son began to doubt.

He doubted as he grew from toddler to child, and from boy to man, and when he was old enough to go to the factories himself if he so desired, he stood before his father one night and asked him what would happen to the other people, when his destiny came to fruition. The father told him that these people were only reflections, shadows from a candle’s flames, and that the true people - his people - would be saved. Would be free.

The son went away and spoke to his friends in the building, and around it. He spoke to the mothers who had raised him to be kind, and the sort-of uncles who had taught him patience and how to knock back a shot of alcohol without falling on his ass. His friends scoffed at the idea of being mere shadows; the mothers patted his head and gave him a treat and told him that nothing lasts forever but should be treasured while it is here; the uncles gave him whiskey and told him seriously that while some things were beyond fixing, there was worth in them anyway.

And so when the son returned home, he looked his father in the eye and told him no.

The father accepted this only after a prolonged discussion. Finally, he said that the boy was as human as the rest, and free to do as he wished no matter the consequences. The son went to sleep that night, buoyed by his victory.

The next morning the father went to the factory and stepped calmly into a runaway drill press, saving the four other men it would have crushed had his body not gotten tangled in the gears. The son was given no time to grieve, and turned out on the street. With a minimum of skills, he drifted from job to job, from temporary house to temporary house.

It ends with an unseasonable frost and a still form huddled in an alleyway come morning.

* * *

It starts with a baby, placed on the steps of an orphanage.

He is not the first, and far from the last to be brought to the orphanage in such a fashion. The caretakers find him in the morning and bundle him inside, placing him in the nursery with all the other babes to which they tend. His swaddling is searched, but there is nothing to identify him or the person who brought him. He is given a name, and put into their records.

The orphanage is very full of children at all stages of growth, from teenagers who help corral the younger ones to unholy terrors who have figured out what legs and hands are for and are determined to use both to the very furthest extent of the law. One more baby is a blip in the background noise of the place, and the name he is given of little consequence.

The baby grows from infant to toddler, from toddler to child, and from boy to man in that place. He is one of the better behaved ones, which means he gets into a minimum of trouble and is trusted to help with the younger children at an earlier stage than most. His days are filled with the rambunctious noise of dozens of other children and he plays and learns and grows up alongside his many siblings of choice; the younger ones love him and the older ones tolerate him and he grows up as happy as one can be in a place where the adults have to spend nearly all their time keeping the children fed and clothed and never mind about nurturing.

He loves the orphanage, and so when the time comes to leave he instead chooses to stay and help. Being an adult in the orphanage is much, much harder than being a child in it, but he is determined.

Years pass, and eventually he begins to dream. He dreams of a figure in a black cloak that tells him how to use what it claims are his special powers. He does what the figure says to a bureaucrat looking to shut the orphanage down so that their funds may be given to other projects the bureaucrat values more highly, and is pleased with the result. He dreams of a figure in a black cloak telling him of danger in the near future, and wakes in time to deal with a fire one of the children accidentally starts.

He dreams of a figure in a black cloak telling him to leave the orphanage to fulfill his destiny. He wakes, and does not leave.

It ends with a revolution, sweeping through the city and leaving the orphanage a smoldering ruin with far too many still figures huddled inside.

* * *

It starts with a baby left in a hospital.

None of the doctors and nurses can figure out who left it, or to which of the pregnant mothers it should go. Finally, one of them locates a mother admitted for pregnancy but for whom no baby is listed; satisfied by their own oversight, they give the baby to the overjoyed mother and fill in the paperwork correctly as it should have been in the first place. The father is proud to have a son.

The trio go home to a luxurious mansion on the edge of town, and the son grows from infant to toddler, and from toddler to child. The proud parents go out for a night on the town to celebrate their child’s birthday - never mind that it is becoming clearer as he grows that his features match neither of them, he is theirs and that is all that matters - and decide to take a shortcut between the holoview station and the restaurant their child has chosen and where he will undoubtedly consume far too many sweets to sleep comfortably.

It ends with three gunshots and the sound of fleeing feet as blood pools on the street.

* * *

It starts with a baby, left on the steps of a childless pair of farmers.

They take the boy in and raise him right, as only farmers can. He learns to love the land from his father, and he learns to love other people from his mother, and by the time he begins to dream of a figure in a black cloak, he is well content to remain where he is for the rest of his life. His dreams do not need to be bigger, for what could be better than home?

It ends with a blight that kills first the crops, then the land, then the farmers.

* * *

It starts with a baby -

* * *

It starts with -

* * *

It starts -

* * *

It -

* * *

_It starts with a baby, left in a basket on the steps of a monastery and taken in by the monks to live and to learn the ways of a parallel._


End file.
